Google Shuts Play Music Store in Another Step Towards Transition to YouTube Music

Google is shutting down its Google Play Music streaming app in favour of making YouTube Music Google’s primary music streaming service. Google has been alerting users about the closure of Google Play Music since a few months now. The tech giant had, in August also given a timeline for the incremental shutdown. According to that timeline, Google is today shutting down the ability to buy music from the Play Store worldwide. Google Play Music Store allowed users to buy songs and listen to them in GPM format, with users also having the option to download their music in MP3 files.

Apart from getting rid of the ability to buy and download songs, Google has also removed the “Browse Music” tab from its mobile Play Store. The web version of the Play Store, on the other hand, shows a “Music store on Google Play is no longer available” disclaimer. Further ahead, Google Play Music will also lose the ability to stream content around the world later this month. Now, for a minority of people who use Google Play Music, Google is offering three choices to hold on to their music. First, Google Play Music users have been given the option of exporting their library to YouTube Music. Second, if users do not wish to transition to YouTube Music, they can keep their purchased music via Google Takeout, Google’s service that allows users to export their data to a downloadable archive file. Lastly, users can just go ahead and delete everything they have on their Google Play Music library and recommendations history.

Google plans to shut down Google Play Music completely by the end of this year.